Why "down style" has its values

[debgeisler]

I've long been a proponent of "down style" in headlines. This style says that we use sentence-style capitalization in headlines (only first letter of first word; thereafter, only proper nouns), and do away with "up style," which capitalized all major words save articles and prepositions.

To those who favor "up style," I offer this headline from today's Boston Globe online,

Senate grapples with spy bill

This becomes much more confusing the old way:

Senate Grapples with Spy Bill

Tell me, who is this Spy Bill of whom you speak?

Comments

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

I think it's a matter of cultural conditioning. "Down style" in headline, as in book and article titles, just creeps me out, like bad spelling and punctuation. Naturally, UW-M's library listings all use it; so the first thing I always had to do with my bibliographies was restore things to their "rightful" format.